Memento Mori
by 1shot
Summary: "Choose," they demand, so she does. It is the last act of Elena Gilbert; it is all she has left. / Something of a companion piece to "History Repeating." Rating for disturbing imagery. Spoilers to early season 4.


MEMENTO MORI

_I._

_The Victorian period (1837-1901) formalized mourning rituals in both Europe and North America; as Victoria mourned her doomed Albert, nations grieved with her. In polite American circles, by the time of the U.S. Civil War an increasingly complex series of rules was imposed on both the living and the dead. Mourning became a fashion, an industry, and a cult. _

Elena dies in the river.

The water is cold and dark, and her fingers have gone numb; she fumbles, frantic, at the unresponsive buckle of the seatbelt. Her nails gouge her thighs through her jeans; denim and flesh shred ragged.

She dies alone with the river tugging at her clothes, her feet floating, useless kicks that shove her back against the truck's worn seat. Headlights illuminate a vast green nothing in the water ahead.

She thinks she sees a trout, quicksilver and fleet.

She wants to die resolute, but the part of her that is eighteen years old is weak and screaming.

She has died too many times to see her life flash (she has seen that show before), but there is a moment when she would give anything - herself, her soul, even Matt's smile (not that, no, _she takes it back_) - to see Stefan's white face, his haunted eyes, Stefan's hair floating and Stefan's hands reaching.

She thinks the sharp bark of laughter she hears might be Damon's, but then her lungs are crushed by a black and impossible weight and she is choking.

_She wants her mother._

It hurts.

_Mom?_

She cannot brea -

.

_II._

_Mirrors were kept covered in the room where the body lay; the silvered glass was draped in black scarves, or dusty velvet, lest the corpse's image should be captured and the spirit of the restless departed become trapped on the other side._

She gazes at her dead-girl reflection, all long dark hair and night-dark eyes. She thinks her skin is maybe paler than it used to be. Elena pulls a face, furrowing her brow and sticking her tongue to the side just to see. She knows it won't leave frown lines anymore.

For a moment, she's relieved - that's Elena, that stupid silly drunk face. That's sleepover Elena and camping Elena, just the way she's always been.

Then she notices the dried fleck at the corner of her lips, the slightest remnant of crusting blood. The hunger is a stab in her gut and she can't stop her tongue from darting to the side, licking.

She can't stop herself from watching.

The girl in the mirror has black-veined skin now, a hint of sharp teeth, eyes gone flat and empty as a shark's.

It's only for half a breath, but Elena knows that face too, the demon lover with her head full of secrets and her nineteenth-century smile.

(_No_, whispers the thought. _So much older than that._)

She's never been the one before. Something roils like a snake beneath her ribs - vicious, trapped, afraid. She wonders about the girls long past; wonders if this is fate. Infinite monsters in infinite mirrors.

She wants to reach through and draw Katherine out, but her palm flattens against cool glass. All she can do is stare.

.

_III._

_The colour of mourning was black; it was thought that darkness would hide the wearer from the eyes of the dead. Grieving the departed was a wrenching affair, but how much worse to fear the vengeful spirits that might return, or the abominations that might crawl from the earth._

She has never seen so many colours before. Stefan puts a ring on her finger and takes her into the sunlight; Elena laughs, and for little moments, they pretend they are married. They nuzzle under shadowed trees. He tastes like pine boughs and promises.

She knows she isn't herself anymore - never will be - but she's still here and so is he, and the light is bright and golden.

It's okay, maybe, that she's not entirely alive; at least they have forever.

Sometimes, when he slides his arms around her and she leans her head against his chest, she can feel all the wiry strength of him - his hands, his power that shredded so hard at the door of the sinking truck - and the beast in her gut ripples.

_She died alone in the river._

"What's wrong?" he murmurs, gentle in her ear. She shivers with it.

"Nothing," she says. "I love you."

When he lowers his head down to hers, she sinks her teeth into his lip. She is fierce enough, now, to make him gasp.

.

Damon sets a row of crystal glasses before her, filling each with thick crimson until the sheer raw smell of it has her fingertips gouging mahogany.

"That's an antique," he notes pointedly. He drops into a chair and waits while she pries her nails from the table's edge. There are splinters under her skin.

"Now what?" she grits; it is hard to talk through teeth grown pointed and sharp. She breathes the scent of cloying blood; her eyes trace the curve of Damon's smug smile. Famine is a gnawing and alien wrench within her.

"Now you sit there. These are no good for you, anyway." Damon lifts one of the glasses, tracing a pale finger around the rim. He does it slowly, deliberately. He takes a sip. "Waste not, want not."

She is halfway across the table but then he's thrown her back into the cracking chair, his hand crushing her throat as he cuts off her scream. Crystal tumblers shatter and roll; blood soaks his shirt, runs all over the floor.

_He will always choose her._

She strikes at him like a rabid thing. He wipes the spit from his face.

.

_IV._

_In medieval times, the dough for funeral cakes was left to rise on the corpse's chest, that mourners might consume bread infused with the essence of the departed. By Victorian times, such commemorative cookies had been simplified and commercialized. Available from local bakeries, they were individually wrapped (often with death notices) and sealed with black wax. _

She vomits into the toilet with Matt holding her hair. It's like Elena is fifteen; it's Tyler Lockwood's birthday party all over again.

But there's blood dark and clotting in the toilet bowl, blood on her chin and blood splattered on her fingers. Her tongue is coated with copper and death and bile.

She wants more of it. The thought makes her dizzy with need.

"I thought it would taste better," she groans; she scrubs a hand across her lips and is thankful, at least, that she's wearing black this time.

"Fine wine?" The quiver in Matt's voice is almost imperceptible. He's a trooper. She didn't know how much, before. "A nice mocha?"

Elena chokes a laugh and spits out a slippery black gob. "It's about as gross as you'd think."

"Kind of trying not to." Matt wrings out a facecloth in the sink with his free hand; he lifts the ponytail he's made of Elena's hair, and crouches to set the wet towel across the back of her neck. It's cold and uncomfortable and it doesn't help.

She can feel a single drop of water break and run down her shoulderblade. She closes her eyes.

"Elena." Matt's voice is a sigh.

Elena says, "No." She thinks about the water. She doesn't think about Matt's pulse, the throb of it, the way it picks up speed.

"Elena."

"I'll be fine."

"You won't."

"I'll _hurt _you." She can hear her voice crack.

"Don't take this the wrong way? But I owe you. So, uh... do what you gotta." Matt's hand is warm, his thumb brushing just beneath her ear. His wrist is inches from her teeth. She can hear the blood whisper in his veins.

(He doesn't understand.)

She thinks of Matt at fifteen, that long-ago party (so very long ago); the way he blushed and stammered. The way he slid his arm around her shoulders, his sideways glance, _is this okay _and _I like you _and _please._

His life is hot and gushing in her mouth. She is his guilt and his absolution. His groaning gasp is just the same.

.

_V._

_At the moment of death, it was necessary to stop any clocks in the room. Ill fortune would fall upon any household where time was left ticking onward._

"This is harder than before," confesses Elena. She folds her arms tightly and tells herself it's not for protection. The football bleachers are pressing against her spine; their hard plastic is at least a familiar discomfort.

"What?" Caroline tosses golden hair and beams across the football field, waving to the cheerleaders at practice. "The school thing?"

("Give me an 'M'!" echoes across the field. "Give me a 'Y'!")

"Yeah. Like any of it's important anymore."

"I guess it's my last chance to be normal. Yours too." Shrugging, Caroline leans back on her elbows, stretching out her legs in the sun. "But I'm basically failing geography."

Elena doesn't know how to deal with this new Caroline - Caroline, who is self-assured and wise in the ways of death. Caroline, unlikely queen of self control. Elena stares at the cheerleaders and their wavering pyramid, and thinks of all the ways she's been left behind.

"It's weird," admits Caroline then. She watches Elena watching the waving pompoms (the arms and the legs and the veins and the waving pompoms) and adds, "Careful, okay?"

Elena stifles a retort (she's _fine_) and yanks her attention away, looking down at the scuffed stands - carved initials and scratched blue paint. An empty Coke cup, rolling on its side. "We can't do this forever."

"Well, Rebekah's trying. I mean, not that I'm necessarily recommending her life choices."

Elena offers her flattest glare (her best Katherine, or maybe her Damon; she's learned a few tricks) and Caroline's smile hesitates. "Sorry. We'll figure it out. That's all I have. We will figure something out." Caroline's teeth are flat and human, gnawing at her lower lip; for an instant, she is insecure and vulnerable again. Elena is unprepared for the sudden rush of warmth. She wants to hug Caroline. She wants to punch a fist through the bench.

(Maybe she's not fine.)

("If we can't do it, no one can!" Cheers and laughter. A teen girl is tossed in the air, her ponytail rippling, her heart beating like a bassoon.)

"You should probably pick a brother, first," adds Caroline.

Elena's nails slice into her palms. It's all she can do not to lick her own blood away like spilled ice cream.

She thinks her control is improving.

.

_VI._

_Few things were as delicately mannerly as the written word; cards of condolence might be sent, or letters on black-edged paper. While none would be so gauche as to pay an uninvited social call on the bereaved, a gracefully penned note was considered ideal._

Stefan's diaries are lined up on shelves in the boarding house; Elena gazes at the leather spines, unmarked and faded. "Can I read these?" she asks. It's a diffident question, edged with hours of long thought. She's been looking for a while.

Stefan, startled, looks up from the bed, where his pen is set to the pages of another anonymous journal. They are still for a moment, both of them; Elena starts to shake her head, but Stefan's already saying, "Sure."

"Are you -"

"I want you to know who I am."

It's precisely the right answer - the one that makes Elena smile, which in turn sets Stefan's eyes crinkling at the corners. Elena reaches for a slim, unbattered volume - slightly off-kilter from the rest - and flips it open just before Stefan adds, suddenly, "Not that one."

He's already across the room, his hand on hers - the breeze of it flagging at her hair - but Elena's just as fast, these days. She has her fingertips on the yellowed lines, the simple list of names.

"Elena," says Stefan, his shadow across the page.

Elena reads:

_Elsie McBride, June 23  
Daniel Richards, June 23  
James Edger, June 23  
Alison Smith? Smythe? (Alyson?), June 23  
Cecilia Winter, June 25  
_  
"Elena," says Stefan again, but she is frozen.

Staring at the page, she swallows. "Looks like June 23 was a banner day."

His expression falters like a wounded deer, like she's punched him; she catches his wrist before he can pull away. "It's okay," she says. "Hey." She holds the journal in her hand, her thumb marking the place, the names of his dead.

(She understands him better now. She thinks of shredded corpses and the ghoul within her stirs.)

.

"I don't know why you write in that thing," says Damon, leaning against the door of the basement cell. The light in the hall casts him in silhouette; his barred shadow stretches across the floor. "Be honest. Is this really something you want to remember?"

Elena sits cross-legged on a camping cot; she swallows hard and clenches her hand around her pen, trying not to think about blood. There's a gnawing hunger inside her; the page of her journal is covered in curving, ragged black marks.

Damon's watching her, so she clenches her teeth and replies, in her best normal tone, "It helps me think. Stefan gets it."

Damon's expression flinches and resettles, a little flintier than before.

Guilt stabs her (like crimson need; she is _so hungry_) and Elena sighs. "You didn't ever write?"

"I'm more of a graveyard soliloquy kind of guy. 'Alas, poor Alaric. I knew him, Elena. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.'"

There's an oddly strained twist to Damon's smile. Elena stares at him. The curve of his lips fades, then quirks more crookedly as he adds, "He hath borne me on his back a thousand times."

"Was that a sex joke?"

"I'm hurt."

"I know you. And also, ew."

"A familiarity with the Bard is key to any young lady's education. Here hung those lips that I have kissed," continues Damon. Elena throws her journal at the bars.

.

_VII._

_The appropriate mourning time for a husband was two years. For a brother, three months. _

Elena runs through the woods by the lake, two shadows in pursuit. She marvels at her own speed - at the bright crack of branches beneath her feet, and the way the trees carve through the moonlight. She can see everything in the blackness. She can hear two squirrels burrowing to stillness in the hollow of the tree trunk beneath her hand. Their fragile heartbeats are terrified, but she has no time to be ashamed; she is running.

Behind her come the Salvatores; their footsteps are swift and sure. They move in perfect tandem, each muffled shadow-sound echoing to her strange new ears. Damon sweeps left and Stefan heads right - she can't say how she knows.

_It's okay to love them both, _said Katherine once. Elena thinks of the dead girl in the mirror; she thinks of predator eyes. She _wants. _

She wonders, suddenly, if this is her future now - to run through the dark, through sterile centuries, to never let them catch her.

She fakes a stumble, flinging her arms wide; when the first of her pursuers comes too close, she whirls and shoves her shoulder into his solar plexus, flips him over into the cold mud. Some small, still part of her shrinks in horror, but the beast within has her straddling Stefan's ribs. Her teeth are bared in triumph.

"Nice," approves Stefan, maybe startled, maybe a little proud. His shirt is stained with dirt, and his white-flashed grin is warm. His hand slides up her thigh.

But Damon says, "Slow." That's when Elena feels the pressure of his fingers at her spine, hard and unrelenting. "That could be a stake," he adds, unnecessarily. She rolls her eyes.

"She's doing fine." Stefan's expression has shifted to a furrowed frown, his gaze sliding to stare past Elena's shoulder.

"This isn't the school track team. We don't give ribbons for participation."

Damon's breath is on the back of her neck, a hint of bourbon and salt blood. Elena sucks in air between her teeth and Stefan's gaze goes chill.

Rolling to her feet, she flees again.

.

_VIII. _

_Corpses were often posed, lifelike; stiff faces were rouged, sightless eyes pried open as stricken family members gathered around for photographs. Seeking to preserve thereby the memories of their loved ones, they artfully pretended nothing was wrong. _

She lies next to Jeremy on the roof of the house; they are looking up at the stars and swapping hits of gin, because Alaric left the bottle behind (along with some extra daddy issues, thinks Elena, and a drinking habit. This is what they've become).

The buzz does something to take the edge off Elena's hunger; just enough, maybe, so that she can pretend she doesn't hear her brother's pulse.

She can pretend he's still her brother, even. He breathes a sigh, resting the bottle on his chest. Elena, glancing over, takes in his slack youth, his expression dazed and innocent, and wonders what he'll look like when he's old and grey.

She is just forcing the thought away -_ stop it, the stars are pretty _- when Jeremy rolls his head to the side, tousled hair falling in his eyes.

"Damon's a dick," he observes, apropos of nothing.

A startled silence; she barely recognizes her own laugh. "Oh my god, I know."

"Elena -"

"Don't," she says.

"Lookin' out for you." Jeremy lets it go; he passes the gin over and Elena drinks deep, tilting her head back, letting the raw heat run down her throat so she can tell herself it's somehow better than blood.

Jeremy's watching and she has to remind herself that he's not as young as she thinks, anymore; that he pins ghosts with that same worried stare.

She wonders if all the dead might just blend together for him, after a while. If she is just the Ghost of Sisters Past. The sky above glitters like the light from Japanese lanterns.

"Here's to you, Ric," she sighs, because the bottle's empty, and "Oh, fuck." She doesn't swear all that often. It seems like a good time to start.

.

_IX._

_The nineteenth century's fascination with mourning customs enabled and accompanied the rise of the vampire. Polidori, Le Fanu, Stoker, and other authors captured the voice of the popular imagination - the subversive, transgressively erotic possibilities of the mysterious undead._

"I don't know who I am," she tells Stefan, shaking; he tugs at her hand, pulling her down beside him on the couch. His arm slides around her shoulders and she leans in.

"You're Elena," he answers. "Some things will change. You're still Elena."

"Your shirt is scratchy," says Elena, fingering the worn cotton. "Everything's _scratchy_. How do you stand it?"

"You get used to it."

Stefan likes to be touched; Elena can see his eyes soften. She rests her head on his shoulder; it is the gift she gives him, that he is touchable, that all his trespasses are forgiven.

"I'm hungry," she confesses.

"One day at a time," offers Stefan, a touch too easily, and Elena wants to drive her fingers into his gut. The impulse is sharp and sudden, a jagged blade of anger. Her eyes widen and her shoulders go tight until Stefan says, "Hey." His voice is very quiet. "Elena."

He calls her name like it's a mantra; she feels herself rigid, a red mist in front of her eyes, and Stefan is saying, "Elena, Elena, Elena," until his shirt tears in her hands and she buries her face in the curve of his neck. She remembers the squirrels in the darkness of the woods, huddling in the enviable safety of their burrow - small and safe from the night.

"I don't know who I am," she whispers again. And, "I'm _hungry._" The glare from the fireplace hurts her eyes; the crackling is like gunshots to her ears.

Stefan's shirt is scratchy.

He holds her until the morning comes.

.

She enters Damon's room without knocking. He is lounging in the bed, a book in his hands, silk sheets pulled to his hips. The lamplight casts shadows across the alabaster planes of his chest.

"You know I'm naked under here," he says, not looking up, but Elena sighs, "Don't be an ass," and tosses herself onto the mattress next to him. It's a wide bed. There's room.

Damon does look over then; one black-winged eyebrow quirks. Still, he bites back what is clearly his first response, and waits.

"Suddenly I understand your obsession with thread count." Elena smooths her palm across the sheets.

"What do you want, Elena?" Damon's tone is careful. He holds himself motionless, tense as a hunting dog.

Elena is quiet for the space of several breaths before she ventures, finally, "If Katherine hadn't come along... if you hadn't... what would you have lived like?

"A colossal tool."

"Right, but how would you have been different?"

It's enough to startle a snort from Damon, but Elena lowers her eyes to study the embroidery on a pillow. She can feel the weight of Damon's attention before he puffs a sigh and drops his head back, flashing his gaze to the ceiling. "I would've inherited all of this," he waves a hand, "and probably gotten married and had a dozen snot-nosed children - if I didn't get shot in the war, or die of dysentery, or maybe gangrene. I would've gotten wrinkled and fat and talked about crops, and never once driven a sports car or heard the best of Kelly Clarkson. It would've sucked. Why?"

But he knows why, so Elena doesn't answer. She trails a fingertip across the edge of the sheet.

When she makes no move to leave, Damon goes back to his book, flipping a few pages until he finds the place he needs. "Somehow," he reads aloud, his tone mild, "it seems to fill my head with ideas - only I don't exactly know what they are! However, _somebody _killed _something._"

"What are you -"

"Quiet," he says. "Enjoy the classics."

Elena wraps her arms around a pillow, and stays.

.

_X._

_Whether due to poor medical practices or urban legend, Victorians had a particular terror of being buried alive. To prevent this dark end, wealthier citizens purchased "safety coffins," which would allow any poor soul thus trapped to ring a bell that would sound in the graveyard above._

"Choose," they demand, so she does. It is the last act of Elena Gilbert; it is all she has left.

(She can't choose herself; she never has. She dies all over again.)

She feels his lips, his hands, his longing, his joy; _her private monster, _she thinks, but her own hunger pulses beneath her ribs, steady as a heartbeat. His teeth scrape her neck and she hears her own low growl. This is the thing she has become.

She draws him close, feels her unliving body thrum with his every breath. She cries out like a prayer. When he rears back - when her nails rake his shoulders and he stares down at her, feral eyes white-ringed - she realizes, too late, she's spoken his brother's name.

She wants to apologize - she honestly means to apologize - but laughter's ghost crawls gasping from her throat instead. It is desperate and incredulous and raw. She cannot stop.

It feels like drowning.

.

_XI._

_To Beauty's shaded room  
The Spoiler's step of gloom  
Hath darkly stole,  
Her lips are ghastly white,  
A film is o'er her sight,  
Pray for the soul. _

_- Lydia Howard Sigourney, "The Passing Bell" (1847)_


End file.
